Radiation Oncology

The Radiation Therapy Department at Carol G. Simon Cancer Center at Morristown Memorial Hospital is nationally recognized for innovative services and exceptional care. Radiation therapy uses radiation to destroy cancer cells and shrink tumors including breast, prostate, lung, colon, cervical, head and neck, stomach, pancreas and uterine cancers. About half of all cancer patients receive some form of radiation therapy.

We’ve treated thousands of patients with radiation as their primary treatment for cancer or in conjunction with other therapies, such as surgery or chemotherapy. Our patients have personalized treatment plans that are monitored by a radiation oncologist daily. These plans are reviewed by our multidisciplinary team of board-certified radiation oncologists, medical physicists, radiation therapists, oncology nurses who specialize in the needs of radiation patients, oncology-certified nutritionists, and licensed oncology social workers.

We provide our patients with the most technologically-advanced radiation treatments available and the latest innovations in radiation therapy, such as 3-D conformal external beam therapy and high-performance linear accelerators with multileaf collimation.

Options for patients include:

Image-Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) - We were the first in the United States to implement IGRT. To date, we have performed more than 10,000 treatments. IGRT combines a 16-slice CT scanner with a linear accelerator, allowing the tumor to be located and visualized within seconds prior to every treatment, with sharper and more precise images than other radiation technologies. This real-time technology allows our team to adjust the radiation target when needed, protecting the surrounding areas in the patient’s body from unnecessary radiation.
*Image of an abdomen; patient undergoing IGRT for liver cancer (above).

Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) - IMRT is the most advanced form of radiation treatment today. This treatment employs a highly non-uniform beam to create greater conformal dose distributions, maximizing the dose of radiation to the cancer without increasing side effects.

Brachytherapy Treatment - Brachytherapy applies a higher dose of radiation directly to the tumor while sparing healthy tissue and surrounding organs. We have been treating patients with this technology for close to ten years and have completed nearly 4,000 procedures.

• High Dose Rate Brachytherapy - This treatment, in which a radioactive source is placed inside a catheter in the tumor for a short period of time, can be used for different types of cancer, including lung, esophageal, gynecological, prostate and recurrent cancers.
• Low Dose Rate Brachytherapy - Lower doses of radiation are placed inside tumors for longer periods of time. This technique may include permanent seed implantation, delivering tiny radioactive seeds directly into the tumor, and iridium ribbons Ir192, and cesium implant Cs137 that deliver higher doses of radiation to the cancer while minimizing the dose to adjacent organs.

CyberKnife - Our colleagues at Carol G. Simon Cancer Center at Overlook Hospital provide our patients with access to CyberKnife, an advanced radiosurgical technology, allowing us to offer the full array of radiation therapy options.